Keyboards find use not only as input devices for computing applications, but are also widely used in the gaming industry for controlling purposes. For instance, a gamer may use the key board alone for controlling or a combination of the keyboard and any other device such as a mouse or a joystick. The environment in professional gaming parlours and gaming centres nowadays have less light or very minimal light, the reason for which is to bring out the gaming experience to the fullest. Under conditions of less light, the keys in the keyboards that are used in the gaming centres may not be visible to the gamer. The gamer may press the wrong key which may be undesirable or take time in finding out the key, which wastes a lot of precious time when playing games.
Keyboards with backlighting have been developed to ameliorate the problems stated above. In US 2010/0039297, grooves are arranged between the rows of keys on the keyboard. The grooves are illuminated by lighting devices on either end of the grooves. The grooves are located near the base of the keys. The grooves have two sidewalls running along the length of the same. One of the sidewalls has a reflective surface. So when light is transmitted along the groove, the reflective sidewall reflects the light upwards and between the rows of the keys, so as to illuminate the keyboard.
Moreover, in US 2010/0148996, the keys in the keyboard are associated with reflective structures such that light from the lighting element associated with the keyboard is reflected by the reflective structures so as to light the internal cavity of the key and illuminate them.
However, there is no complete illumination of the keyboard provided by the above described references and also there is no uniform illumination.